need root help

[Kynan Shook]

You have several options, Steve.
I think the easiest one to work with is probably to enable the root 
user, log in as such, and change the keyboard preference as the root 
user.  Detailed steps:
1. Open Netinfo Manager in the Utilities folder.  From the Security 
menu, choose Enable Root User.  You will need to provide an 
administrative password, and if the computer was initially set up with 
no root password, you'll need to give it one too (otherwise, you'll 
need to know the root password, or reset it if you don't).
2. Log out.
3. In the login window, choose "Other..." to log in as root, and type 
the root password.
4. Once you are logged in as root (the name in the menu bar will say 
System Administrator, if you have fast user switching enabled), open 
System Preferences, and disable all but your favorite keyboard layout 
(in this case, US, but you could just as easily switch to anything else 
your heart desires).
5. Log out of root.
6. Log in as your normal user; your preferred keyboard layout should 
now work properly.  Make sure you know the right way to type your 
password in this keyboard layout, or you'll have to reset your 
password!
7. Go back into NetInfo Manager and disable the root account (Security 
menu, Disable Root User)
8. There is no step eight!

OK, so it's not *quite* as easy as getting an iMac on the Internet with 
Jeff Goldblum's help, but it's not terribly difficult.  There are 
several other ways to enable the root user, if you prefer; such as 
"dsenableroot -u username" where username is the username (duh) of an 
administrative account.  It will then prompt you first for that 
account's password, and then prompt twice to confirm the root account's 
password.

While testing to make *sure* that this would work for you, I 
encountered a problem; namely, after logging in as root the first time, 
the "Other..." user no longer appeared in the accounts list!  This made 
it a challenge to go back and set it to QWERTY again.  Going back into 
NetInfo Manager to re-enable the root account had no effect, though it 
didn't error out either.  However, if this happens to you, there is an 
easy shortcut to get from the "list of users" view of accounts to the 
"name and password boxes" view for the login window.  Press the down 
arrow once to select a user (any one, doesn't matter), and then press 
Option-Return; the window will transform to a name and password box.  
Enter "root" as the user, and type the root password.

I still haven't figured out exactly why this occurred - maybe a corrupt 
XML file somewhere.  The root user is still enabled, as I can log in as 
root using the above trick, but NetInfo Manager doesn't think it is 
enabled.

Anyway, I prefaced this with "you have several options," so here are 
the other ways I have heard of, but have not personally tried:
Supposedly, TinkerTool can change the keyboard layout.  I didn't find 
this setting in the current version of TinkerTool, though I found a 
setting that allows you to change the default startup language in 
TinkerTool System.  Anybody else had any luck with this?
Also, I read a claim by a software author that his product, SetKbd, 
could change this - however it looks more like it's automatically 
setting the keyboard preference *after* you log in.
URLs:
http://www.bresink.de/osx/index.html
http://www.jaw.it/pages/download.html


I think you could also fix this with a clean OS install *without* 
preserving users and network settings, and then copying the user data 
from the Previous Systems folder.  Otherwise, it'll probably pick up 
the same old keyboard settings that root had before.

It's just a random guess, but the preferences file that stores this 
information may be /Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist, or 
some similar file (just do a search for HIToolbox - there are also 
HIToolbox plists in the ByHost folder).
HTH,


Steve Wozniak <steve at woz.org> writes:
> When I got a brand new 17" Al, some time ago, I ran the initial 
> registration screen with a Dvorak keyboard layout selected.
>
> This computer belongs to an American (non Dvorak).
>
> She sets the only keyboard selection to be QWERTY.
>
> Upon certain actions, such as restarting or accessing "About this Mac" 
> the computer switches to Dvorak. But there's no guarantee that it will 
> happen right away. It's a quirky intermittant problem that keeps 
> coming up.
>
> The current work-around is to select both QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards 
> and switch in the menu (or with a keyboard shortcut).
>
> The Apple Store geniuses looked at it this week but had no solution. 
> They said that it was a root level problem. This problem has persisted 
> throughout system installations and updates. I couldn't swear whether 
> a clean install has been done or not, but it's likely.
>
> Does anyone have suggestions that really might fix this.